Founding of the Federation 3: The First AI War (80 page)

“We have to make room. If they wish to be independent, then they can do so.
Somewhere else
,” he said firmly. “I'm not supporting free loaders. The same goes for
all
species, Doctor. If they aren't willing to step up and contribute, they can find their destiny somewhere else.”

Doctor Glass scowled but then looked away.

<>V<>

Lieutenant Claudis crossed his arms as he watched the descent. The only thing better would have been seeing it at night. Okay, and the real thing. But this was close enough he thought, watching the drop pods hit the upper atmosphere. They were like streaks of meteors; long plumes of superheated air trailed behind them as they got deeper and deeper into the atmosphere.

The barges and shuttles were following on behind them but at a less steep angle. The barges he knew he would be able to see by eye. The shuttles would take a bit of luck to see. They were supposed to be maneuvering and …

As he watched a couple of the decoys broke up. He heard a gasp beside him but ignored it. After a moment another decoy came apart; this one exploding into chaff pods which spun and sparked like fireworks. “Something's going wrong!” a female said behind him, voice rising in surprise.

“No, it's the decoys,” Claudis said mildly, not taking his eyes off the exercise. He'd performed his own landing exercise last week. He wanted two more under his belt before the real thing, but he was fairly certain they would be VR ones, not the real deal. “We're going to lose some pods. That's inevitable.”

“Not if we do it right,” the woman said.

Claudis turned to her, sniffed and then looked back to the sky. “Keep dreaming, lady. I don't know what universe you are living in, but I wish it was true.”

“If they don't all get down, someone did something wrong,” the woman insisted.

Claudis flicked his tail in annoyance. He turned to her, eyes narrowing. She was in a fur-lined parka, a white outfit with no rank insignia. She had long red hair and flashing green eyes. “Ma'am, the enemy is going to try it's very best to kill us. You can do everything right and still run into a round. If your number is up …,” he shrugged and looked away.

She seemed to take that in stride. After a moment she murmured a soft, “oh.”

“There are no guarantees in life beyond death. Get used to it. Death and taxes,” Claudis said as the chutes on the drop pods deployed. The chutes were small enough to begin arresting their descent but not completely slowing it. The chutes would be cut a hundred meters off the deck when the retros deployed. He knew that by experience.

“Any problems with the barges?” the lionoid asked, looking to the Sergeant.

“No, sir,” the young chimp replied.

“Good. Keep me posted,” Claudis growled. The chimp nodded in earnest as he kept his eyes on the board. Claudis's own eyes turned back to the heavens above.

The hardware had to be tested in as lifelike conditions as possible. Hence the exercises on Mars. Mars wasn't Earth by a long stretch, but it was the best they could come up with physically—at least until Titan or Venus was made habitable. They didn't have another century or two to wait however.

It wasn't just the hardware being tested, however; it was the men and women riding within and planning the ops as well. Also the people who packed the machines, built them, a lot was riding on the line. They had to get it right. There was something Roman had said about a bad dress rehearsal. He'd heard it but hadn't understood nor cared. They needed to get it right.

It bugged him that all of the senior officers involved in the drop were still on Olympus. None of them could spare the time to come out? Why? Jack Lagroose did so on a regular basis, and what was that about most of them sticking to just the officers’ areas? Not intermingling with the troops? They loved planning and VR training but … he shook his head slightly, putting the thought aside. For whatever reason they were there, he was here. Deal with it.

“Someone didn't adjust for the lighter gravity,” the sergeant called out. “Chutes on two of the drop pods have been cut early.”

“Crap. Alert the crash teams and medical,” the lion ordered.

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell them not to get too close. We don't want the birds falling on top of them.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Remember what I said about someone making a mistake?” a familiar female voice said smugly.

Claudis turned to glower at her over his shoulder. She had her nose in the air. His glare made her take an involuntary step backwards however. “Oh shut up,” he said slowly, then returned his attention to the op.

Hopefully the mix-up in coding would be the only hiccup, though he doubted it.

<>V<>

When Roman got to his office he checked the status update. He was tired but finally feeling like they were making some headway. He wasn't certain why someone wanted fighters. He understood the need for drop shuttles and assault shuttles, but fighters? But apparently they were in the works. Whatever. His finger flicked down through the write-up and then paused as he saw the 3D image. He grunted and then moved on.

They needed vehicles, equipment to take down electronics in large areas, not fighters. Were they airborne? Was that their purpose? To provide air support? Now that he could see a use for. He frowned and scrolled back. No. The answer was a decided no; they were space only. Lovely. He sighed as he pulled his weapon out with the holster and stuck it in his drawer.

He jotted a note asking why, then erased it. He didn't want to be drawn into the mess. Instead he turned to the latest grand invasion plan.

The plan was for a bombardment and then decoys followed by an orbital drop swarm to swamp the defenses and thus establish a beachhead. They couldn't spread out too much, or their forces wouldn't be able to support each other and would invite defeat in detail. But they also knew that Ares would target the Landing Zone area with nukes.

That was why they were using decoys and also a feint. During World War II the allies had needed the Axis to misjudge where the landing was going to be performed and the timing involved. One of their ruses had been Patton's phantom army and the obvious calls to land at Calle. The ruse had fooled Hitler into allowing the real D-Day to go through unmolested at Normandy.

Roman frowned thoughtfully. They were going to have to make several landings obviously and each time learn from the experience. The enemy would also learn. It behooved them to hit the easiest areas first, learn from them while blooding the troops.

He shook his head. He was stuck on Mars training personnel with Choji while Martell was detailed to be the ground commander of the African invasion. That sucked, though he'd heard Elliot was in line as the second-in-command there.

The generals better damn well keep their word that the security personnel would have their own people in the chain of command. This was a joint show, not some grab for glory damn it. He frowned, then shook his head in resignation. As long as it got done, he shouldn't care. Let the damn history books sort it out, right? Only he did care.

The MFI was finally coming along. The first units had passed muster with the doctors and was enroute to Olympus. They would arrive just as the kick off began, therefore lessening their exposure to zero G. All good.

“Sir, we're still having issues with the tigers,” a harried tech said over the intercom. “They won't listen to anyone on duty now.”

Roman scowled. “What's the problem?”

“They won't go to bed.”

He checked the clock. It was near 10 p.m. “Cats are flexible about their sleeping arrangements. If they wish to be up, leave them be. Are they waking the others?”

“No, sir. But they want to prowl. And that Khan!”

“He's a leader. See if you can direct their attentions.”

“Sir?”

“Set up an obstacle course for them. A place to explore that they can't get into too much mischief. Monitor them remotely. Let them think they are skulking around.”

“Yes, sir. But that undermines our authority …”

“Yes, and we'll deal with it. Right now we want them to develop their initiative, to learn their limits.”

“Yes, sir,” the confused voice replied. After a moment there was a click.

Roman shook his head. Tygra was a good sort but still a pain in the ass when Khan got involved. Khan was a schemer. Definitely officer material, though he had a bit of a sadistic streak. They tended to tussle when Khan wanted to do something that would harm someone else. He made a note to break the setup, to expose Tygra to other influences before he became too much of a follower of his brother.

“Computer. Note to Lieutenant Claudis. Look into nocturnal habits of the cats. Find them something to do, even if it is to teach them to sleep when they should. Note ends. Send,” he said.

“Note sent,” the computer said in a flat voice.

Roman nodded. He had a year to get the first generation to the subadult status, all the while other generations were going to be coming in as well.

He heard a crash in the corridor outside. He winced and checked the video feed. Apparently Tygra had tripped over his gangly feet and knocked a cleaning bucket over. His brother had slipped in the wet mess and had fallen as well. Both cats were spitting, wet, and ready to come to blows.

Roman shook his head in resignation has he headed for the door. Tigers, why did it have to be tigers? He hoped he survived the experience.

Chapter 31

Once the September and October convoys were unloaded and processed, things began to move. A lull had started with the orbital war, Olympus opened a new campaign on October 30th with the release of a hundred hunter killer satellites in a single wave to hunt down any hidden weapon, communication, or other satellites or microsatellites left in orbit. Anything that didn't squawk the right IFF was destroyed. Ares, Zhukov, and Skynet could always launch more, if they had the resources to spare.

Ares realized it was going to lose the assets no matter what happened so it directed them to attack Olympus in a spoiler raid. It was an uncoordinated attack, however; it had sent the signals off to each in turn as they passed over one of the ground control transmitters the A.I. still had in its inventory. Some of the surviving platforms were caught out by the HKs and dueled to the death. Others ran their ion fuel supplies dry attempting to get within striking range of the space complex.

The American A.I. sent signals to the other A.I. to follow suit but each took their own time to consider their options before they did so, which again made their attacks uncoordinated and a bit unpredictable.

Olympus, however, was waiting for them. Invisible lasers and masers lashed out, tearing into the approaching kamikaze craft. Additional swarms of HKs were deployed as well, but the initial defensive fire had served its purpose. None of the infected satellites survived to get within attack range. Their debris cloud passed the station with a few impacts, all minor.

“That's that, sir. The orbitals are clear,” Charlie said.

“Don't count on it. They can still launch more. And we still need to do another sweep,” General Murtough ordered. The chimp nodded.

“Are you still going to L-5, sir?” Elliot asked. The general turned to eye the chimp before he grunted in an affirmative. “Last minute jitters on someone's part?”

“I can imagine some stroking going on to ease some fears,” the general admitted. “A mutual SITREP really. We're going down as soon as I get back. Have them ready.”

“Yes, sir.”

Behind the wave of HKs came basking shark-class orbital sweepers. Also known as Brooms or Pac-men, they were simple satellites that deployed a massive ten-kilometer net in front of them. They would sweep up debris, moving slowly until their net began to deform form impacts. Then it would close itself like a wet water purse net, channeling its catch to the main craft. From there they would be compacted and stored.

Once the craft was full, it would perform one last orbital burn to send it into the atmosphere to burn up and rain parts over the Pacific Ocean.

<>V<>

Two days after the opening moves began, Jack returned to Lagrange Point for a SITREP. His timing was good; it was just prior to the planned launch date of the first invasion. When he stepped off the ferry, his retinue was met by a familiar face.

“Have a nice trip?” Isaac asked.

“Don't you have something better to do than meet and greet? Aren't there aids for that?” Jack quipped.

“Very funny,” Isaac replied. “I came to see if you brought the tipple and coffee,” he said.

Jack snorted and handed over a bottle of whiskey from his supply. After a moment and grabbing motion from Isaac to cough up the rest, he pretended to sigh theatrically as he pulled out a bag of coffee and handed that over as well. “There? You happy?”

“Yes. We can't start the invasion without these,” Isaac said, smiling as he handed them off to a tech. Jack rolled his eyes.

“Have a good trip?” Isaac asked as they passed through a series of locks to the interior of the massive complex. People were everywhere: some racked out in sleeping bags, others adrift talking quietly. Jack looked around, nodded and followed the general.